The Water Mirror (15 page)

“You know who I am. Do not be afraid of me.”

Merle pulled the mirror out of her pocket and held it in the flickering torchlight. The surface was clear, the phantom nowhere to be seen. But she also felt that it wasn't he who was speaking to her. She quickly slid the mirror back into her pocket and took out the vial. It fit comfortably into her hand.

“You?” If she only spoke in single words, not in entire sentences, maybe it wouldn't be apparent how very much her voice quavered.

“You must get away from here. They are going to search through all the houses that border on the canal. And after that, the rest of the district.”

“What's happened to Serafin?”

“He is now a prisoner of the Guard.”

“They'll kill him!”

“Perhaps. But not right away. They could have done that already, in the water. They are going to try to find out who you are and where they can find you.”

Merle shoved the vial back into her pocket and felt her way through the darkness. She was miserably cold in her wet dress, but her goose pimples had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Are you the Flowing Queen?” she asked softly.

“Do you want to call me that? Queen?”

“First of all I just want to get away from here.”

“Then we should attend to that.”

“We? I see only one person here who has legs to run away with.”

In the dark she found a door that led back into the house. She slipped through it and found herself in a deserted entry hall. Floor and banisters were covered with thick dust. Merle's feet left tracks in the dust as if it were a blanket of snow. Her pursuers wouldn't find it hard to follow her trail.

The front door was nailed shut from the outside, like many doors in Venice these days, but she found a window whose glass she was able to break with the fallen head of a statue. By some miracle she climbed out without cutting either hands or knees.

What now? Best go back to the Canal of the Expelled. Arcimboldo would know what to do. Or Eft. Or Junipa. Someone or other! She couldn't carry this secret around with her alone.

“If your friend talks, they will look for you there first,”
warned the voice suddenly.

“Serafin will never betray me!” she retorted, annoyed. And in her thoughts she added:
He swore never to let me down.

On the other hand, she had watched passively as the lion carried him away. But what could she have done anyway?

“Nothing,”
said the voice.
“You were helpless. You are still.”

“Are you reading my thoughts?”

She got no answer to that, which was answer enough.

“Stop that,” she said sharply. “I saved you. You owe me something.”

Further silence. Had she angered the voice? So much the better; maybe it would leave her in peace then. It was hard enough to think for one person alone. She needed no inner voice, questioning her every decision.

Cautiously she ran down the alleyway, stopping again and again, listening for pursuers and suspicious sounds. She even kept her eye on the sky, although it was dark enough that a whole pride of lions could have been romping around high up there. It was still hours till sunrise.

Soon she knew where she was: only a few corners away from Campo San Polo. She'd covered half the distance back to the workshop. Not much farther and she would be safe.

“Not safe,”
contradicted the voice.
“Not as long as the boy is a prisoner.”

Merle exploded. “What is this?” she shouted, her voice resounding loudly from the walls. “What are you? My voice of reason?”

“I will be that, if you want.”

“I only want you to leave me in peace.”

“I am only giving you advice, not orders.”

“I don't need advice.”

“But I am afraid you do need it.”

Merle stopped, looked angrily around, and found a gap in a boarded-up wall between two houses. She had to settle this business once and for all, here and now. She squeezed herself through the opening, drew deeper back into the dark canyon between the house walls, and sank down with her knees drawn up.

“You want to talk with me? Well, then, we'll talk.”

“As you wish.”

“Who or what are you?”

“I think you already know that.”

“The Flowing Queen?”

“At the moment, only a voice in your head.”

Merle hesitated. If the voice really belonged to the Queen, wouldn't it then be polite to deal with her a little more respectfully? But she was still full of doubt. “You don't talk like a queen.”

“I talk like you. I speak with your voice, with your thoughts.”

“I'm only some girl.”

“Now you are more than that. You have undertaken a task.”

“I have undertaken nothing at all!” Merle said. “I didn't want all this. And don't talk to me now about fate and such nonsense. This isn't a fairy tale.”

“Unfortunately, it is not. In a fairy tale, matters are simpler. You go home and find that the soldiers have
burned down your house and carried off your friends, you become angry, recognize that you must take up the battle against the Pharaoh, meet him finally, and kill him through a trick. That would be the fairy tale. But unfortunately we have to deal with the reality. The path is the same one and yet different.”

“I could simply take the vial and tip whatever's in it into the nearest canal.”

“No! That would kill me!”

“Then you aren't the Flowing Queen. She's at home in the canal.”

“The Flowing Queen is only what you wish her to be. At the moment, a fluid in a vial. And a voice in your head.”

“That's confused nonsense. I don't understand you.”

“The Egyptians drove me out of the canal by laying a spell on the water. That is the only reason the traitors succeeded in imprisoning me in this vial. The magic still permeates the water of the lagoon, and it will last for months before it has evaporated. Until then my essence cannot be combined with the water.”

“We all thought that you were something . . . something different.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Something spiritual.”

“Like God?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Even God is only always in those who believe in him. Just as I am in you now.”

“That's not the same. You left me no choice. You talked to me. I must believe in you, otherwise . . .”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise it would mean that I'm crazy. That I'm only talking to myself.”

“Would that be so bad, then? To listen to the voice inside you?”

Merle shook her head impatiently. “That's hair-splitting. You're only trying to confuse me. Perhaps you really are only that dumb phantom who went into my mirror.”

“Put me to the test. Leave the mirror lying somewhere. Separate from it. Then you will see that I am still with you.”

“I will never give up the mirror voluntarily. I treasure it, as you know very well.”

“It is not going to be forever. Only for a moment. Put it down at the end of this little alley, come back here, and listen to see if I am still there.”

Merle thought it over briefly, then agreed. She carried the mirror to the farthest corner of the alleyway, about fifteen yards from the entrance. She had to step over all sorts of trash that had collected there over the years. She drove away rats with her feet, and they snapped at her heels. Finally, leaving the mirror, she ran back to the front end of the alleyway.

“Well?” she asked softly.

“Here I am,”
responded the voice with amusement.

Merle sighed. “Does that mean you continue to claim that you're the Flowing Queen?”

“I never claimed that. You said it.”

Merle hurried back to the mirror and picked it up. Quickly she dropped it into her dress pocket and buttoned the pocket closed. “You said you used my words and my thoughts. Does that also mean that you can influence my will?”

“Even if I could, I would not do it.”

“I guess I have to believe you, huh?”

“Trust me.”

It was the second time tonight that someone had asked that of her. She didn't like it at all.

“Nevertheless, it could be that I am only imagining all this, couldn't it?”

“Which would you prefer? An imaginary voice that speaks to you or a real one?”

“Neither one.”

“I will enlist your services no longer than necessary.”

Merle opened her eyes wide. “My
services
?”

“I need your help. The Egyptian spy and the traitors will stop at nothing to get me into their power. They will hunt you. We must leave Venice.”

“Leave the city? But that's impossible! There's been a siege for more than thirty years, and they say it's just as tight as on the first day.”

The voice sounded stricken.
“I have given my best, but at last I also have fallen victim to the enemy's tricks. I can no longer protect the lagoon. We must find another way.”

“But . . . but what about all the people? And the mermaids?”

“No one can keep the Egyptians from invading. At the moment they are still not certain what has happened to me. That helps us with a delay. But there is only a little time left before they find out the truth. And the city is only safe until they do.”

“That's nothing but a temporary reprieve.”

“Yes,”
said the voice sadly.
“Nothing more and nothing less. But when the Pharaoh's fist closes around the lagoon, he will be looking for you. The envoy knows your face. He will not rest until you are dead.”

Merle thought about Junipa and Serafin, about Arcimboldo and Eft. About all those who meant something to her. She should just leave these people behind and flee?

“Not flee,”
contradicted the voice.
“But go on the quest. I will never give it up. If it dies, I die as well. But we must leave the city to find help.”

“There's no one left outside anymore to help us. The Empire has ruled over the whole world for a long time.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not, too.”

Merle had had enough of these enigmatic hintings, even though she was gradually losing any doubt that the
voice in her head actually belonged to the Flowing Queen. And although she'd grown up in a city in which the Queen was venerated exceedingly, she wanted to show no reverence. She hadn't asked to be drawn into this mess.

“First I'm going back to the workshop,” said Merle. “I have to speak with Junipa, and with Arcimboldo.

“We will lose valuable time.”

“That's my decision!” Merle retorted angrily.

“As you will.”

“Does that mean you aren't going to try to talk me out of it?”

“Yes.”

That surprised her, but it gave her back a little of her self-confidence.

She was just about to climb out of the space between the boards to the alley when the voice spoke again.

“There is still one thing.”

“And?”

“I cannot remain much longer in this vial.”

“Why not?”

“The desert crystal numbs my brain.”

Merle smiled. “Does that mean you'll talk less?”

“It means that I will die. My essence must bind with living organisms. The water of the lagoon is full of them. But the vial is only cold, dead crystal. I am going to wither like a plant that is withdrawn from the soil and the light.”

“How can I help you?”

“You must drink me.”

Merle made a face. “Drink . . . you?”

“We must become one, you and I.”

“You're already in my head. And now you want my entire body, too? Do you know the saying about someone to whom you give your little finger and instead he takes the whole—”

“I will die, Merle. And the lagoon with me.”

“That's blackmail, you know that? If I don't help you, everyone will die. If I don't drink you, everyone will die. What comes next?”

“Drink me, Merle.”

She pulled the vial out of her pocket. The facets of the crystal sparkled like an insect's eye. “And there's no other way?”

“None.”

“How will you . . . I mean, how will you get out of me again, and when?”

“When the time for it has come.”

“I thought you'd say something like that.”

“I would not ask you to do it if we had a choice.”

Merle thought for a brief moment about the fact that she very much did have a choice. She could still throw away the vial and act as if this night had never taken place. But how could she lie to herself about all that had happened? Serafin, the fight with the envoy, the Flowing Queen.

Sometimes responsibility sneaked up on you without your seeing it coming, and then, very suddenly, it wouldn't let you go anymore.

Merle pulled out the stopper of the vial and sniffed at it. Nothing, no smell.

“How . . . umm, how do you taste, actually?”

“Like anything you want.”

“How about fresh raspberries?”

“Why not?”

After a final hesitation, Merle put the opening to her mouth and drank. The fluid inside it was clear and cool, like water. Two, three swallows, no more, and then the vial was empty.